But, in reality, a flight is a grouping of similar objects, like a flight of stairs or a flight of geese. Thus the same term applies to cabernets, pinots, or other small pours of wine, grouped together.

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7 Responses to “Why is a wine flight called a flight? [reader mail]”

a grouping of similar objects, yes, but what about…
a murder of crows, a crash of rhinos, a gaggle of geese, a congregation of alligators, a mob of emus, an implausibility of gnus (!), a nuisance of cats, a gulp of swallows (that might work for wine),
quite a list I found online:http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Pointless/AnimalGroups.html

lots of good alternatives, but I think “flight” is used because it also implies travel; travel over time (vintage flights) or over space (varietal or vineyard/producer flights). Plus, it sounds dramatic and exciting. “let’s all take a flight!”

It’s harder to get people excited about going through ‘battery of wines’ or a ‘litter of reds’!

Thanks for digging that up. For those that cannot see it because of the paywall, Frank Prial is reporting from the Los Angeles County Fair, where he was working as a judge in a wine competition. He says that the groups of wines are called flights in wine judging. (Article dated 8/15/1979.)

So, in the quest for true etymology of the term, I guess we have to find out how groups of wines came to be called flights in wine competitions in the 1970s.

Of course ‘flight of wines’ derived from wine judges who could not agree on which group of wines were worth more than $100 but they eventually agreed that the concept of such wine values was a flight of fancy so they jokingly referred to the wines as a ‘flight of fancy wines’ which for professional reasons was reduced to ‘flight of wines’.